In Friends of the Earth – Les Ami(e)s de la Terre v. Canada (Governor in Council) 2009 FCA 297 [leave to appeal dismissed 2010 CanLII 14720 (S.C.C.)] , the Federal Court of Appeal let the Canadian government get away with open defiance of a statute of the Parliament of Canada,the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, 2007 (KPIA).

According to the federal government, its defiance is no business of the courts, because the obligations in the KPIA are “not justiciable”. The Federal Court of Appeal agreed, but with the thinnest of justifications.

This country signed and ratified an international convention on the . . . [more]

My experience in private practice – and from my conversations with other sole practitioners in smaller markets, it was a common one – was that it was, at times, a roller-coaster. Billings were often feast or famine. To compensate, lawyers can develop a thick skin when it comes to dealing with difficult clients. Our tolerance level went up just for the sake of regular billings.

Another experience that I occasionally enjoyed – and again, from my conversations with other sole practitioners in smaller markets, it was a not uncommon one – was that it was good to terminate the relationship . . . [more]

Like many of my North American colleagues, I keep up with new law journal articles by subscribing to alerts from Current Law Journal Content (CLJC), the free table of contents service published by the Washington & Lee School of Law Library and the University of Texas Tarlton Law Library. Particular characteristics of certain of the commercially published law journals indexed in CLJC have recently puzzled me: the practices of these journals seem out of step with today’s norms for distributing metadata and content of scholarly and professional articles. Here’s what I’ve seen:

• Many of the articles in these

Equal access to a civil and family justice system that can uphold rights and fairly and effectively resolve disputes is a fundamental and far-reaching component of democratic societies. It influences our lives every day via contracts and credit situations, the ownership and distribution of property, family relationships and their breakdown, personal injury, benefit entitlements, human rights, and various corporate arrangements.

At the most basic level, the civil justice system exists to provide people with access to knowledge about their rights, and if necessary to a means of enforcing them (Civil Justice Advisory Group, 2005, p.20).

Although the civil . . . [more]

Ever feel like you were falling behind in all the important areas of your life? As the pace of work shifts into high gear in September it is all too easy to get trapped in survival mode – just working to make it through each day and pushing aside your own personal priorities and objectives. 

I have had many lawyers tell me they feel they are failing at both their jobs in life – as parents and as lawyers. These professionals are men and women from different firms and different parts of Canada. One thing I know for sure is . . . [more]

It is well known in this industry that clients want more out of the firms they work with than ever before. In years past you could take a client out to dinner a couple of times per year and that would be enough to hold onto that healthy retainer. Today, however, it is all about extras – the “value-adds”.

One of the most effective value-adds is a knowledge transfer event. This type of event provides an opportunity to meet face to face with several clients and prospects at the same time, while providing lawyers an opportunity to showcase their knowledge . . . [more]

It has occurred to House of Butter that in 2010 there now appears to be a singular lack of imagination at senior management levels at the major legal publishers.

Plenty of the usual tinkering and re-imagining of existing content and products and more of the we’ve bought this and look at the our latest JV with one or other technology based company to help “streamline” content management and flow at law firms. Woop de doo.

HOB wonders if this lack of imagination has its roots in fact that both Lexis and West currently see themselves as “content” database storage and . . . [more]

Two years ago, we began to say in lectures that we had seen a 200% rise in the number of cell phones passing through our forensics lab. Today, we are beginning to say that the increase is more like 500%. And it isn’t primarily standard cell phones – virtually all of the phones are smartphones. 

We’ve checked with others in our industry and they confirm that they are increasingly seeing smartphones as a source of electronic evidence. In particular, deleted e-mails and deleted text messages seem to be in play. It often seems that evidence which is missing from workstations . . . [more]

“Not failure, but low aim, is crime” – James Russell Lowell (1819-91)

Innovation, and creating innovative environments, was a common theme of my reading this summer. It wasn’t planned – it just seemed to be a topic that many of my favourite professional development sources. I thought I’d take this column to pass along some of the key messages from that reading.

Fail early, fail often, fail small

It’s true that we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. But failing early in the process of developing a product or service allows us to . . . [more]

$1.8 billions dollars. That’s what the Truth in Sentencing plank of the Federal government’s ‘get-tough-on-crime’ policy will cost in new prison construction alone over the next five years. We’re not even talking about what it will cost to hire the additional correctional service employees to staff these new prisons. Keep in mind as well that Truth in Sentencing – which eliminates the long-standing two-for-one credit on pre-trial custody – is just one of the many new so-called anti-crime initiatives either already in force or soon to be in force courtesy of the Tory law-and-order agenda.

As a defence lawyer writing . . . [more]

I happened to have had lunch with a new marketing professional recently. I spent some time briefing her on the strategic project that I was doing with her firm. During our discussions she asked if I might have any advice for her, given that I’ve spent three decades working with law firms and this was her first foray into professional services.

Now, I’ve heard from a number of business development professionals about how they spend far too much of their time having to justify their existence at their firm; how no one knows or appreciates the contribution that they are . . . [more]

What does the acquisition of one publishing house by another mean for an author? Since the announcement of the acquisition of Canada Law Book by Carswell Thomson, I have received a number of calls from authors and editors asking me questions relating to the acquisition and what it will mean to them.

Is one legal publisher better than another?

Needless to say, it can be a bit disconcerting for an author to learn that his or her publisher has been sold to a competitor. In persuading an author to sign with Publisher A, as much effort would have been spent . . . [more]